1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a burglary prevention system for protecting and preventing the theft of cash cassettes loaded in automatic transaction apparatuses, such as automated-teller machines (ATMs), which can be used for a variety of transactions.
2. Related Arts
An automatic transaction apparatus, such as an automated-teller machine (ATM), which can be used for a variety of transactions incorporates a cash cassette in which is stored money required for an accounting process performed for cash transactions. The cash cassette is exchanged periodically, or when the supply of money remaining in it becomes low.
Burglaries during which cash cassettes are stolen tend to occur when cassettes are being exchanged. Burglaries may also occur after the door of an automatic transaction apparatus has been opened for the performance of maintenance procedures. In order to prevent such crimes, conventionally, a lockable room is provided adjacently behind the automatic transaction apparatus, and in that room, an operator responsible for the machine can exchange cash cassettes or a maintenance man can service the machine. If no work space is defined behind the automatic transaction apparatus, however, the number of operators or maintenance men who handle cash cassettes is increased to prevent burglaries.
Recently, the tendency is to install automatic transaction apparatuses in restricted spaces. Specifically, in addition to being installed in financial facilities, an increasing number of automatic transaction apparatuses are being installed in stores, such as convenience stores, for which the apparatuses provide not only a cash withdrawal function but are also employed to sell tickets to various events and to function as computer game software vending machines.
In small shops, such as convenience stores, it is difficult to obtain the space necessary for a locked room behind an automatic transaction apparatus. Further, since the customers of a convenience store usually patronize the store at all hours, day and night, when an operator who is responsible for a machine must exchange cash cassettes under these conditions, there is always the danger that a criminal act, a burglary, may take place during which a cash cassette is stolen. In this case, as is described above, to preclude the commission of such a crime the number of responsible operators is increased.
However, an increase in the number of such operators is accompanied by a rise in operating costs. And since it is predicted that the installation of automatic transaction apparatuses in restricted spaces, as is described above, will increase, and that the additional operating costs involved will tend to preclude the implementation of a policy providing for an increase in the number of responsible operators, a corresponding rise is also anticipated in the number of burglaries during which cash cassettes are stolen.